The ‘ Designer’ Big Mac : Would You Pay Extra For One ?

Is there anyone who doesn’t know that a Big Mac is ” Two all-beef patties ,special sauce ,  lettuce , tomato, pickle, and onion  on a sesame seed bun” ? It is McDonald’s best known item ( along with their fries) and is synonymous with fast food . It is a quick meal , relatively cheap , convenient and filling . Over the years , it has come in for its share of criticism : Calorie laden.  Unhealthy. Tasteless meat . Mystery sauce . Limp lettuce. Soggy bun .Perhaps in answer to those criticisms, McDonald’s tried out  a “Designer ” Big Mac , dressing up the basic Big Mac with a variety of toppings and even improving the bun.

The experiment took place in Italy last fall when McDonald’s turned to Gualterio Marchese , then 81, to design two burgers and a dessert . Marchese is renowned as the father of modern Italian cuisine and is the first non- French chef to earn three Michelin stars for his restaurant. One of the burgers Marchese designed was the Vivace  burger, topped with sautéed spinach , onions , bacon and mayonnaise blended with a whole grain mustard ( ingredients typical of northern Italy). The other , inspired by Sicilian flavors, was the Adagio , topped with eggplant mousse, grated ricotta , almonds and fresh tomatoes . The burgers cost one euro more than the regular burgers , which translates to a mark-up of about 25-30 %.  As for the dessert , it was a combination of the classic Italian dessert , tiramisu , and a sugary bread usually eaten at Christmas.The nationwide promotion was originally scheduled to run 6 weeks but its popularity caused it to be extended for an extra month.

I must admit that both burgers sound interesting and I might have been tempted to try one just out of curiosity. I’d probably go for the Vivace ; you can’t go wrong with bacon and the mayo mustard combo is intriguing. I would n’t care for  the Adagio. I’m fine with the eggplant mousse but the grated ricotta is not exciting and the idea of almonds is bizarre.

Beyond the element of curiosity , I don’t think much of the promotion . Marchese ‘s stated intention was to introduce young people to vegetables . A laudable goal but I can’t see how this promotion would be successful in doing that.

Beyond the curiosity value , I don’t think much of the experiment. The toppings might be interesting but do they fundamentally alter the burger? I think not . The mystery meat is still the same . The bun is still the same .And so is the ambience of the McDonald’s where you eat it .

As they say , you can put a dress on a pig , but it’s still a pig.

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Pistachios : Plain, Flavored and Scrumptious

Of all the different nuts , I have always liked pistachios the most . In downtown Manhattan , close to my office , there was a fruit and nut store that displayed  burlap bags full of pistachios . The pistachios came in three sizes … Extra large , Mammoth and Colossal  and they were all delicious and natural colored. (None of those red colored imported pistachios that used to be the norm forty years ago. Those were dyed red to hide the blemishes due to antiquated harvesting procedures and to compete with the more attractively colored candies in vending machines ). The Colossal ones really were HUGE , though I can’t say that they tasted any different from the smaller ones.

One of the pleasures of eating pistachios is  that one has to shell them . As in the case of peanuts in the shell , there is something very satisfying in splitting the shells to get at the nuts . I have never bought (unshelled) pistachio nut meats and I can’t understand why any one would want to; it would be very easy to go overboard eating them and they would not be any fun. I must admit , however , that it very frustrating to get the occasional pistachio whose shell is not split and which has to be cracked with brute force . Trying to crack it between one’s teeth can be an expensive mistake and yet it feels like too much trouble to do it with a hammer or a mortar and pestle.At the same time , I don’t want to waste even a single one …

Until recently , I’d only had the plain ( salted) pistachios . Then , a couple of months ago, I happened to buy a bag of pistachios at Costco and found them to be subtly different and much , much better. I looked closely at the bag and found that they were Salt and Black Pepper pistachios from Everybody’s Nuts, a company based in Lost Hills, California . The pepper adds another dimension to the taste without altering it drastically.

I’ve since found that Everybody’s Nuts also has pistachios with two other flavors , Sweet Chilli and Garlic & Onion. Other companies offer even more flavors such as Jalapeno , Habanero , Rosemary Garlic , Sweet and Spicy Chipotle , Chili Lemon  and Cilantro-Lime . I’m in two minds about these  different flavors . It seems to me that they would mask the essential taste and character of the pistachios . When you eat a Jalapeno pistachio , aren’t  you  tasting just the jalapeño ? And what is the difference, tastewise, between a Jalapeno pistachio and a Jalapeno almond ( available at Trader Joe’s)? On the other hand , I only tried  the Salt and Black Pepper pistachios by mistake and wound up loving them . Perhaps I should give one of these other flavors a try…

We had stayed away for pistachios for many years under the impression that they were high in calories and not so good in nutritive value . We only started eating them again recently after reading that ” Pistachio nuts are one of the healthiest nuts to eat. They are rich in phytosterols, antioxidants, unsaturated fat, carotenoids, vitamins and minerals, and fiber. Pistachios are one of the lowest-calorie nuts, with more nuts per serving than any other. They work to lubricate the intestines and keep the liver and kidneys healthy.They also help to lower cholesterol.”

If anyone out there knows of a similar article about cashews , I’d be grateful if you could let me know . ( LOL)

P.S . The Salt and Pepper pistachios are a really good  buy at Costco : $ 16.99 for a three pound bag which is at least 3 dollars cheaper than any place else.

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The Surprising Appeal of KDramas

In one of my earlier posts, I’d written about KDramas ( Korean TV serials) and how much my wife and I like them . At the time , I knew they were popular , but not how popular . I didn’t know either that their popularity is not a new phenomenon but that it goes back several years. In the U.S , Kdramas  first became well-known in areas with a heavy Korean- American presence but , by now , they’ve become favorites with other segments of the population. Netflix has a lot of them available on the streaming option and many ( non-Korean) subscribers have written to say how much they enjoy them and to demand even more of them . In a comment echoed by several others , one Netflix subscriber wrote in to say “ I love this drama! I was just about to cancel my subscription but this and a few other of the new Kdramas  will definitely keep me subscribed. I’m so happy now. ” Another wrote to suggest ” I would LOVE to see not only more kdramas, but also Taiwanese and Japanese dramas. There is a great list of these that I’m sure people would be just as enthusiastic about …”. Good idea ( LOL).

Nor is the popularity of Kdramas restricted to parts U.S. My daughter, who lives in Japan,  tells me that they are all the rage there. This is all the more astounding when one considers the past history of Korea and Japan, and their mutual antipathy. According to some observers , Kdramas have improved relations between the two countries as more Japanese people became interested in Korean culture . Exposure to  Korean language, cuisine, and history has not only positively influenced the perception of Koreans among the Japanese people, but also relieved some of the antagonism many Koreans feel towards Japan. This has promoted Japanese tourism to South Korea. Conversely, the series Iris had several pivotal scenes shot in Akita, Japan, which led to an increase of Korean tourists in that part of Japan. Such is the popularity of KDramas in Japan and other parts of Asia including Thailand ,Vietnam ,  the Philippines, HongKong  and China that it has resulted in the coining of the term Hallyu or Korean Wave . KDramas are also gaining popularity in other parts of the world such as Latin America and the Middle East.

In general , KDramas are of two types The first are Korean historical dramas (also known as sa geuk)  that have  very complex story lines with elaborate costumes, sets, and special effects.These are of less interest to me because I am not ( yet) familiar with Korean history. The other type resembles western soap operas with shorter, quickly resolved plots. They typically involve problems associated with relationships, money, conflicts between in-laws (usually between the mother and son/daughter in law) and usually last   from 16  to 30 episodes , though they can sometimes be longer. It is these that I ( and most non-Korean audiences) enjoy.

Why are they so absorbing ? There are many reasons …

Kdramas are shot in select , beautiful locales and the production values are excellent . The quality of the picture ( crisp and bright ) puts other productions to shame.( I recently happened to see an Italian mystery and while the plot and the acting were very good and the locations beautiful , the entire show seemed  dingy , the images indistinct). Drama set in Seoul or other urban centers show the nicest parts of the city ;the architecture is ultra-modern , the offices hi-tech , the apartment furnishings opulent . When they show other parts of the country , they focus on  gorgeous, pristine landscapes . Even the supposed middle-class dwellings are superior to those we are familiar with . And everything is so clean !! And the dress sense of the characters …outstanding. Even I , a  male immune to such things , couldn’t help noticing that the clothes worn by the different characters , young and old , are  exceptionally harmonious and well designed.

Even as we realize that Korea cannot possibly be so uniformly wonderful, we still feel like going there to see for ourselves. Perhaps that is the intention of the producers, to promote tourism ? Whatever … the glimpses we get of Korea are a delight to the senses.

Kdramas ,focusing as they do on families, promote togetherness and family values and  are heavy on sentiment and emotion.  The love stories depict romance , and there are  none of the strong sexual elements that we are accustomed to seeing in Hollywood , Bollywood and other productions. There is almost no kissing ,very few clinches .The length of these serials, long but usually not too long , allows the script writers to fully develop the characters. Consequently , the viewers find the relationships , the characters more believable , more appealing  and we identify with them more strongly. None of the characters that populate these Kdramas are truly evil . They are people who take a wrong turn due to circumstances , decent people gone wrong and , at drama’s end, they repent and are rehabilitated ,  more often than not.The directors of these Kdramas have also mastered the art of cliff hangers . Each episode ends on such a note that it makes you want to watch the next one immediately. It also helps that the acting is almost always uniformly good and the actors and actresses attractive .

An unexpected  bonus is the small touches of humor in these shows . Contrary to the image that one has of the inscrutable , dead serious Oriental  the little tidbits lighten the mood of the drama and make it all the more enjoyable . 

I wonder if the main reason that foreign audiences find Kdramas absorbing is the family structure that they depict. They show  joint families in which the members genuinely love and care for each other , though there are the inevitable misunderstandings and conflicts that arise when  many individuals  live together.  Particularly in the U.S where individualism is stressed and in Japan ( where space considerations make joint families unfeasible), is such togetherness  something we yearn for?  Perhaps we crave the security and the strength of an extended family even as we subconsciously know that it is not practical  ? It’s a thought .

It also occurs to me that we are all incurable romantics. We , women and men ( except for the self-absorbed young ) want to see true love win over all obstacles. It is very satisfying when the hero and heroine clear up the misunderstandings and declare their love for each other . As one viewer put it, “ I experienced so many different emotions while watching this, I laughed, cried for happiness and sad moments and they are all hearttouching ...” Another said ” I shed a lot of MANTEARS while I was watching this and I am not ashamed …”

Kdramas are not without their flaws .The plots have many  improbabilities and owe a lot to impossible coincidences. Characters bump into each other so often ( or narrowly miss each other  with unfailing regularity) that it seems like they live in the same block  and not in a city of eight million.Many misunderstandings  could easily be avoided if someone had made a simple phone call or said what was on his or her mind. The English subtitles are occasionally whisked off before one can read them  and are sometimes awkward.  But these are all things that are easily excused because the Kdramas are so satisfying . The one drawback that I find difficult to stomach is that the heroes are very often arrogant and obnoxious at first and are only slowly transformed by the influence of the sweet , cute heroine . There were two highly rated shows ( Boys Over Flowers  & Secret Garden ) where the hero was so impossible that we lost interest and stopped watching after a couple of episodes.

There are several others that we loved . In addition to City Hunter , which I previously wrote about, there are  Protect the Boss , Shining Inheritance and Creating Destiny . The last-named is probably the one you’ll enjoy most because of its touches humor and the strong characterizations  but all of them are good . If you don’t have Netflix streaming you can watch them for free on sites such as hulutv or crunchyrolltv if you can stand the ads . Happy viewing.

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The Drop, Michael Connelly and Harry Bosch

For some years now , I’ve felt that  Michael Connelly is the top mystery writer in America. I first encountered his writing when I read  The Black Ice (1993), the second Harry Bosch novel, almost two decades ago. I liked it so much that I went back and read Harry’s début appearance , The Black Echo ( 1992) . That hooked me ;I’ve read every Harry Bosch novel since . The Drop is the eighteenth in the Harry Bosch series and it has Michael Connelly at the top of his form.

 As per the DROP  (Deferred Retirement  Option Plan)  , Harry Bosch, now 60,   has been given a three-year extension  before he must retire from the LAPD.  He now works in the Open-Unsolved Unit which investigates cold cases from the past. Facing  the impending end of his detective career only makes Bosch all the more determined to solve as many murder cases as he can. Still , he is surprised when not one but two cases are assigned to him and his partner, David Chu.In one ,  a drop of blood from a 1989 rape and murder has been tested with new methods which were not available at the time . The DNA results indicate that the blood is that of a convicted pedophile and rapist but this , on the face of it , is impossible. The suspect is now only 29 which means that he was only eight years old at the time of the murder. Harry and his partner have barely been assigned the case when they are pulled off it to investigate the apparent suicide of a man who jumped to his death from the seventh floor of the Chateau Marmont. The case is fraught with peril because the jumper is George Irving , the only son of  Irvin Irving , now a Councilman but previously a deputy chief in the LAPD and Harry’s nemesis. In spite of the bad blood between them , the Councilman has demanded that Harry be assigned to the case because he wants  answers and he knows that Harry will find them , come what may.

Harry and his partner work both cases and make a chilling discovery ; a sadistic serial killer has been operating , undetected, in LA for more than two decades. The Irvin suicide which appeared an open and shut case also has some startling twists and turns . All the while Harry and his partner have to traverse a political minefield as Irvin Irving , who is not a man to be crossed, appears to be involved in a sleazy influence peddling conspiracy. Needless to say , Harry Bosch gets to the bottom of both cases with dogged police work coupled with flashes of pure genius but how he does it makes for an absorbing  police procedural.  By now , mystery fans are familiar with  Michael Connelly’s work and this ranks as one of  his best efforts. 

As widely acclaimed as the Harry Bosch novels are , none of them have been made into movies . This seems  surprising  until one realizes that they do not translate well onto the silver screen. Bosch is dedicated , almost obsessed with his work and while his backstory is interesting , his personal life is not absorbing. He is a  widower, bringing up a precocious daughter and his work precludes any lasting relationships . The crimes he solves  are sordid and horrifying and there are no car chases and  very few shootouts. This is no good at  the box office . A parallel can be drawn with Henning Mankell’s series of police procedurals featuring Kurt Wallender ; the books were great but the TV series starring Kenneth Branagh as Wallender was ho-hum.

 Two other Michael Connelly novels have been made into films. One , Blood Work ( 2002),produced and directed by Clint Eastwood was about a retired FBI agent, Terry McCaleb, who is recovering after receiving a heart transplant . He is visited by a woman whose heart he received and she asks him to help solve her sister’s murder.Cint Eastwood plays Terry McCaleb and the movie was pretty good but not especially memorable . The other was The Lincoln Lawyer ( 2011) featuring the cynical  lawyer / hustler Mickey Haller ( Matthew McConaughey) whose office is the back seat of his Lincoln limousine . The cast had several well-known actors including Marisa Tomei, William H.Macy and Ryan Philippe. The plot is ingenious and the story moves along at a good clip.Matthew McConaughey will make female hearts flutter though he seems entirely too young and goodlooking to play the Mickey Haller described in the book.

It seems to me that authors generally have only one great series of books in them . When they write a series with another protagonist , it is never as good as the first. In the case of Michael Connelly , in addition to the Harry Bosch series , he also writes about Mickey Haller ( 5 books as  of now) plus stand alone novels featuring Terry McCaleb , the gambler Cassie Black, and reporter Jack McEvoy. While all of them are good or better , none approaches the level of the Harry Bosch novels. Perhaps it is because Connelly has spent so much time , so many years developing the Harry Bosch character and  has been able to get into his skin so thoroughly that he is not as convincing when he writes about other protagonists.

It’s going to be a long wait until Harry’s next appearance The Black Box , due November 2012.

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To Kill a Mockingbird … The Movie

There will always be an argument  about what one should do first: read the book or see the movie. I don’t see why it should be so .  A book is much more detailed , so much more complex than a movie, that it should be experienced first. A picture may be worth a thousand words but a movie is still a condensation ; many things have to be left out if a three hundred page book is to be translated into a two-hour movie.

In the case of To Kill a Mockingbird, I read three-quarters of the book before I saw the movie. While both of them are excellent ,  the movie  cannot possibly hope to convey the humor in the book to the big screen and, of course, it leaves out some of the details. In all other respects, the movie is as  good as the book.

Gregory Peck has been accused, in the past , of being somewhat wooden in his acting. Not in this movie . Here his portrayal of Atticus Finch hits all the right notes…the principled , courageous small town lawyer struggling to bring up his motherless children even as he fights the good fight . No wonder that he won the Oscar for Best Actor.He is Atticus Finch and I can quite believe the anecdote  that Harper Lee gave him her father’s watch as a gift.  Peck was actually the third choice to play Atticus but I’m glad that Rock Hudson and Spencer Tracy were unable to accept the role . In my opinion , Hudson was a light weight as an actor and Spencer Tracy too old to make a credible Atticus.

At first sight , Mary Popham didn’t fit my image of Scout Finch but by movie’s end I had to admit that she andPhilip Alford ( who played Jem ) and John Megna ( as Dill) were wonderful in their roles. At the Oscars she narrowly lost out to Patty Duke ( Best Supporting Actress,”The Miracle Worker”). Of the others , Brock Peters was superb as the accused  Tom Robinson, innately dignified and decent , fearful and hopelessly resigned to his fate. Much is made of the fact that this was Robert Duvall’s acting début but he was not called on to do much. In his role as Boo Radley, he appeared only towards the end of the film and did not utter a single word.

The film  garnered two other Oscars : Best Screen Play ( Horton Foote) and Best Art Direction &  Set Design . They were richly deserved. Foote’s screenplay preserves all the highlights of the novel and I found myself recognizing the dialogues from the book as I watched the movie. One effective device in the movie treatment is the scene where Atticus brings out the fact that Tom Robinson is left-handed . He tosses a pen to Robinson who automatically catches it with his right hand ,giving Atticus the opportunity to establish that Robinson’s left hand was mangled when he was 12 and that he could not possibly have used it to batter Mayella. As for the sets , they were faithfully recreated from sketches of the original buildings and I could have sworn that the entire movie was shot on site.

Accustomed as I am  to color and ,lately , HD TV  I don’t usually like to watch black and white movies. To Kill a Mockingbird was an exception ; such is its excellence that  I didn’t care that it was in B& W. It is no wonder that it is one of the top 25 movies of all time . 

For those who  liked the movie , I strongly suggest that you watch the 2010 documentary, Hey , Boo : Harper Lee & To Kill a Mockingbird ( available on Netflix Streaming ). It gives much insight into the life of the author as well as the making of the movie. Harper Lee stopped giving interviews in 1964 and I, for one , didn’t know anything about her except that she is still alive and well at age 85. In interviews with relatives , friends and one-time neighbors, Hey Boo gives us some background on the author , her beginnings and the sources for her inspiration . There is a wonderful anecdote about the generosity of friends who enabled her to write full-time and complete the novel. Lee had moved to NYC  and was working as an airline  reservations clerk with BOAC while trying to write in her spare time . In 1957 , an editor at J.B. Lipincott advised her to re-cast her essays and reminiscences as a novel and to work on it full-time . Michael Brown , who with his wife Joy was a close friend , had made some money at songwriting and generously gave it to her so that she could give up her job and concentrate on the novel. It was another 2 1/2 years before the novel was completed but , if not for Michael Bown’s generosity, it might never have seen the light of day.

Hey Boo  has interviews with several writers such as James Patterson, Scott Turow , Wally  Lamb , Anna Quindlen and Richard Russo and personalities like Oprah Winfrey and former UN Ambassador Andrew Young who tell us about the passages in the book that affected them. They help us understand nuances that we may have missed. There are also some very interesting reactions from a range of people , from actors like the grown up Mary Popham ( ” Scout”)  to school children in the South, black and white, who are asked what the book did for them.

One of the most interesting clips was that of a woman who grew up in  Alabama talking about the time her entire fifth grade class saw the movie when it first hit the theaters in 1962. She tells us that , as she watched the movie, she fully expected Tom Robinson to be exonerated . When he was found guilty , she was horrified to the point of tears but, even as she was crying ,she could not help feeling guilty :a white girl going against the principles she had been brought up to believe in, by  shedding tears for the fate of a black man. Remarkable  in its honesty.

Another notable sidelight is the interaction between Harper Lee and Truman Capote. Capote was instrumental in introducing Lee to her editor and , conversely,Lee was very supportive of Capote when he was working on his controversial best seller, In Cold Blood. However, after Harper Lee won the Pulitzer Prize in 1966, Truman’s jealousy drove them apart. In later years, as Lee never published another book, there were rumors that Truman Capote must have helped in the writing of To Kill A Mockingbird. Truman , cad that he was , never denied the rumors and , by playing coy , gave the impression that they were true. That was low , even for him .

The documentary also floats several theories about why Harper Lee never wrote another novel . Was it the pressure of trying to live up to the standards of to KIll a Mockingbird? Was it that she had that one masterpiece in her and  that ,having written it , she had nothing more to say ? We will never know . We can however be grateful to her for giving us this gem , for having the courage to write a book that was as effective in helping expose an  evil as Harriet Beecher Stowe’ s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a century ago.

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To Kill A Mockingbird … the Book

This book has been a classic since the day it was published over fifty years ago;so this post is not a book review. These are just my feelings on reading it last week for the first time.

Since I didn’t go to high school in the U.S , I never read many of the books that are required reading for American high schoolers. Thus ,I never read John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men ( though I did read East of Eden when I was a kid ). Nor did I read Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 451 , J.P. Salinger’s A Catcher in the Rye  or Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Nowadays , I am helping a high schooler with his English and I have had to read them all , however belatedly. While all of them are very good , the one that moved me the most is the last-named , To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s a masterpiece !

The best writing flows so seamlessly ,  seems so right , that one is  swept along by the narrative and does notice the writer’s artifice or the effort that has gone  into the writing. So it is with To Kill a Mockingbird. The story itself is simple and is related by Scout , the daughter of Atticus Finch , the leading lawyer and a prominent citizen of Maycomb , Alabama. The narrator is the grown-up Scout though the action takes place during the height of the Great Depression when  Scout is just six years old. For the first hundred pages or so, Lee paints a picture of Maycomb as it was in the thirties: sleepy , languorous in the summer heat , comfortable  though impoverished .Through Scout, we are introduced to a host of characters : her widowed father Atticus and her older brother Jem , young Dill Harris who lives in  the house next door during the summer holidays , their black housekeeper Calpurnia , their neighbors the kindly Maudie Atkinson   and the shrewish , sickly elderly Mrs . Dubose , the well-meaning but inexperienced  teacher Miss Caroline , the vicious Burris Ewell  and the Radleys who live next door , particularly the mysterious Boo Radley whom nobody has seen since he stabbed his father with a scissors many , many years ago. Scout and her brother , Jem think of their father as old and  past his prime , not like the other fathers who are very much into manly sports like hunting . Slowly , they come to realize that , in fact , their father has hidden depths and is a man to be admired. This part of the book also portrays Jem ,and particularly Scout growing up and coming of age as they leave behind the innocence of childhood. Though we don’t realize it at the time , it also foreshadows what is to come .

Atticus Finch agrees to defend Tom Robinson , a black man accused of  raping a white woman , Mayella Burris,  even though he knows that, in doing so, he will incur the hostility of his fellow townspeople . He mounts a cogent , well-reasoned defense to prove Tom Robinson’s innocence even though the verdict is a foregone conclusion. There is no chance that the word of a black man will be taken over that of a white woman. Tom Robinson is found guilty and later killed while trying to escape. The town tries to move on from the incident but not so  the evil Bob Ewell, Mayella ’s father  who is shamed by what has happened. He vows revenge and on Halloween night , he attacks Jem and Scout as they are returning home from  the school pageant. He is thwarted as the children receive help from a most unexpected source, the reclusive Bo Radley.The horrifying experience and its aftermath mark the final step of Scout Finch’s coming of age , a process that began with the trial of Tom Robinson.

The book is deeply felt, a distillation of the experiences and thoughts of Nell Harper Lee as she was growing up in Monroeville , Alabama in the early thirties. Atticus Finch was modeled on her own father and Dill was based on Truman Capote , who was the kid next door for many summers. ( What a coincidence that two such famous authors were neighbors).  Atticus Finch is a paragon of  virtue and many high schoolers use him as an example in their SAT essays. I appreciate Atticus too but I also love the character of Scout . The relationship between Atticus and Scout is beautifully delineated and I like to imagine that the fictional Scout was the young Harper Lee.  

Some critics have faulted the novel saying that no six-year-old kid could be as  precocious as Scout Finch.It is a petty complaint. For one thing , the bookish Atticus trains his daughter well . For another , it is story is narrated not by a six-year-old but by the grown up Scout , looking back over the distance of years. I prefer to admire Harper Lee’s genius in being able to capture the innocence of childhood and of a time and place .

Wonderful also is the pacing of the novel, so perfect that a reader just suspends his critical faculties absorbed as he is by the story. Events occur so naturally that it is like floating down the river in an inner tube on a summer’s day. It is difficult to believe  that Harper Lee spent a decade writing the book ; her prose seems so effortless. There are many powerful moments which linger in the reader’s mind long after he puts down the book. Many have singled out the scene when Atticus , having lost the case , packs his briefcase and makes his way out the deserted courtroom. The Negroes in the balcony rise to their feet in silent tribute and one of them , the Reverend Sykes, tells Scout ” Miss Jean Louise , stand up. Your father’s passin’.” I  loved the moment when Tom Robinson, who is being cross-examined, is asked why he did all this chopping  work for Mayella without taking  one penny and he replies ” I felt right sorry for her , she seemed to try more than the rest of em …” The idea of a desperately poor black man having the decency , the humanity, to feel sorry for a white woman and to do her chores for free is touching beyond belief.

There are two other things that I loved about the book. One is the sly sense of humor that permeates it and lightens the treatment of a grim subject. The other is the dialogues between Scout and her father , and again between her and the kindly Maudie . They are spare and incisive but sparkle like jewels. For instance, ” There are some kind of men who are so busy worrying about the next world that they’ve never learned to live in this one , and you can look down the street and see the results .” ( Miss Maudie) . Those words are as true today as when they were first written.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a searing indictment of racial prejudice in the South in the first half of the last century. What is most remarkable is that it was written by a white woman from that same society at a time when those attitudes were still prevalent . The book was written in 1960 ;  the civil rights moment  ,the sit-ins in Birmingham and Mobile , the bus boycotts and the end of segregation came later. The book stirred the conscience of the country and showed us what was wrong with the system.

I don’t always agree with the choices of books that are required reading for our high schoolers. I am mystified by choices such as  Brave New World ( Aldous Huxley)and A Separate Peace ( John Knowles). I don’t see the relevance of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales or   Jane Eyre ( Charlotte Bronte) ,orWuthering Heights ( Emily Bronte) ,and A Lesson before Dying( Ernest J. Gaines), while it has meaning,  is grim .

I have no such reservations about To Kill a Mockingbird. It is beautifully written , its message is still relevant and it reminds us of an era in our history that we need to remember. It is one of the very few books that I would  want to read again.

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The Varli Food Festival in N.Y.C

Yesterday we attended the Varli (Indian) Food Festival at the Metropolitan Pavilion , 125 18th Street in Manhattan. It was an interesting experience and I am glad we went but it could have been so much better.

For the last two months or so , we have been subjected to a barrage of ads on the Indian TV channels extolling the festival as the annual gathering of the finest Indian culinary talent worldwide.Attendees were promised a cornucopia of restaurant tasting booths , a chance to meet famous personalities from the world of Indian food such as Padma Laksmi  and Sanjeev Kapoor , cooking demonstrations , a spice market giveaway , a cookbook , gift bags and other goodies. Foodies that we are , my wife and I felt this was a “must  attend “function  and so off we went.

The evening did not get off to a good start as the traffic was backed up at the Lincoln Tunnel and it took us 2-1/2 hours to get to the venue from Edison , N.J. The event was to  take place  between 5 and 10 PM but, by the time we got to the  Metropolitan Pavilion, it was already 6:30.  Guests were streaming in and by the time we were issued our wristbands and made our way through the doors the place was humming . The Metropolitan Pavilion is a special events venue , its two main halls accommodating a total of more than 1,500 guests. For the  festival , the entire periphery of the cavernous space was lined with food stations serving small tastes of their signature dishes. Among the restaurants represented were heavy weights such as Junoon , Tamarind , Bombay Palace , Devi , Bukhara Grill , Mint and Benares and a host of others. Even before we entered the main hall , we stopped to try a coconut -cashew truffle at the Sweet Silk Confections booth . Shefali Patel, who started Sweet Silk and has been written about in the N.Y Times,  is trying to fuse Indian flavors with traditional French confections . Her truffles arre delicious but pricey.

Inside the hall , we made our rounds of the booths, sampling the offerings . I would have liked to go around  and look at all the stalls before sampling but the place was too crowded and we were too hungry. As a result we tried foods , savory and sweet , in no particular order. A corner of the large hall had been sectioned off  for the VIP guests but admittance was only after 7 PM . By then, we had already partaken liberally of the fare in the main hall. Too bad,  because in the VIP lounge the food was of a higher quality and many of the booths were manned by the celebrity chefs. Still , I can’t complain because we sampled many, many dishes including  Chappli Kabab, a killer Chhole, Chicken Biryani ,Rainbow Parfait, Shrimp Bemisaal, Shrimp Angoori, Mediterranean Kurkure and Lotus Root Crisps topped with Kachumber. A notable fusion dish was  Spicy Crab Morsels served in Poppadum Cones. There were many others too but I just can’t remember. The halls were a teeming mass of humanity and it was like Grand Central Station at rush hour.

     The VIP section was a little less crowded but its chief advantage was that one got to meet the celebrity chefs as they dispensed their food . I wish though that the Chefs had been more clearly identified .While I was familiar with chefs like Maneet Chauhan , Vikram Vij and Jehangir Mehta from their TV appearances I couldn’t recognise several others like Aliya Leekong ( the chef at Junoon ;I was right next to her but the name was new to me ) Walter D’ Rozario, Shipra Khanna ( winner , MasterChef India 2) , Hari Nayak and Prasad Chirnomoula. Of the ones I did meet , I was happiest meeting the charming Maneet Chauhan, a contestant on ” The Next Iron Chef” and a frequent judge on ” Chopped”. On ” Chopped ” she is very fair with her judgements , not abrasive like some others ( are you listening , Alex Guarnaschelli ?); in person, too ,she proved to be well spoken and gracious . Another I liked was  Vancouver based Vikram Vij , owner of the well-regarded restaurants , Vij’s and Rangoli. Friendly and affable , he offered me a slice of butter-soft kangaroo meat  in a green sauce as we chatted . At about 7: 30, the star attractions Padma Lakshmi ( co-host of Top Chef,  cookbook author ) and  Master Chef Sanjeev Kapoor made their entrance and were immediately swarmed by guests and photographers.The six foot tall Padma Lakshmi looked cool and glamorous as she made the rounds. Seeing how she interacted with guests and obligingly posed for photographs I thought that she seemed genuine and unpretentious ; one rejoices in the success of such people. I was surprised to see that Sanjeev Kapoor was almost as tall as her  and slimmer than I thought. I was reminded that television distorts people ‘s images, making them seem ten pounds heavier. Maneet Chauhan too looked more svelte and taller than she appears on ” Chopped”. Other celebrity Chefs I saw were Chef Vikas Khanna ( Host, MasterChef India )looking debonair in whites, and Hemant Mathur ( Chef and Co-Owner, Tulsi) . Jehangir Mehta ( Runner-up, The Next Iron Chef) was also there but he was rushing about with his cell phone glued to his ear and did not seem very approachable. 

  At about 8: 45, there was a cooking demonstration hosted by Sanjeev Kapoor assisted by Chefs  Harpal Singh and Saransh Goila. It wasn’t very interesting . As Sanjeev Kapoor remarked , you can’t do much cooking if one hand is holding a microphone (Note to Organizers :how much foresight does it require to provide a lapel microphone ?) and in any case , he appeared more interested in promoting FoodFood , his 24-hour cooking channel , already very popular in India and scheduled to début in North America this year. It sounds very interesting ( Harpal Singh is the host of ” Turban Tadka” and Saransh Goila hosts ” Roti, Rasta aur …, a food-travel show ) but I’m not ready to add another $10 or whatever to my cable bill.

Instead , I meandered over to the Varli Spice Market stall to pick up my bag of goodies , a shopping bag filled with spices and rice ) It was getting late and with so any guests watching Sanjeev Kapoor , the line was much shorter and it moved fast. Only about 30 people waiting where earlier there had been a couple of hundred. 

The organizer of the festival , Varli Singh , is something of a mystery to me . Though I am fairly knowledgeable about food matters , I had never heard of her until I saw the adds about this festival . I know now that she founded Varli magazine (” Your ultimate guide to great Indian dining “) and that this is her  second time organizing this festival . Last year’s festival attracted 800 guests , this year’s twice as much. I looked at one issue of the magazine and it is a slick but unimpressive glossy,heavy on ads and puff pieces on various chefs . She seems to be able to attract all the top Indian food personalities and is very good at self promotion but I still don’t know what her expertise is .She isn’t a chef and nor does she seem to do anything  except put out this magazine and organize this festival. Anyway , more power to her. I do wish , however, that she would spend half as much time organizing this festival as she does publicizing it .

Next year’s festival wil be held in Dubai , but even if it were in N.Y.C  I would not have planned on attending . yesterday was an interesting experience but once is enough.

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Youth : The Worst Years of Our Lives ?

In the introduction to her book ” Life Gets Better”, Wendy Lustbader tells us about an incident during a bus excursion in New Zealand. It was during a Kiwi Experience and most of the other tourists were young people  between  the ages of eighteen and twenty-four and they were from all over the world. To break up the monotony of the sheep filled landscape , the bus driver asked each of the tourists  to use his tour mike and say a few words.

When it was her turn to speak , Lustbader said ” Don’t worry . These are the worst years of your lives”. She went on to explain ” Everything gets better –you just have to get through your twenties.”

Startling advice , but what followed was even more amazing. At the next rest stop , Lustbader was swarmed by her fellow passengers all of whom thanked her for her words.One after another , they declared their gratitude to her for saying something that they had never heard before. They had constantly been told how wonderful youth was but that , they said,  did not reflect their own experience . A 19-year-old British blonde said that she had been depressed ever since she had left home on the trip . These remarks , she said ,made her realize that it would take time to find the answers to the questions that were nagging her. Another youngster was so unhappy that he had been thinking of killing himself. A 20 year old from Denmark said ” If this is really the best , I don’t even want the rest of it .”

In today’s youth oriented culture , the young are extolled ad nauseam and  TV focuses on the lives of the young and the beautiful . No doubt , because they are perceived as having more disposable income and because they are more vulnerable to advertisements , young adults are fawned upon and catered to . Some years ago , my wife and I attended a taping of ” Who Wants to be a Millionaire ?” and I noticed that all the older people were shepherded to the rear of the studio; the young and good-looking were escorted to the front rows where they  would be more visible when  the TV cameras were trained on the audience. This is just a small example of how our society worships youth but it has been prevalent for  some time .I don’t know who it was that said ” The first thirty years are worth all the rest ” but that quote has been around for a while.

Perhaps we need to re-think the common wisdom that youth is the Golden Age . No doubt , that is  when we are at the peak of our physical powers  but in other respects it is a time of uncertainty and tension . It is the time youngsters leave the safe haven of their  families and strike out on their own . It is an exciting period but it is also fraught with worry , particularly now as  it gets more and more difficult to find a well-paying job and make a career. Young people struggle to find themselves , to discover who they are , what it is they really want, to find their life partner. Meanwhile , we who are looking at them see only their youth , their ” freedom ” to do what they want and we think it the pinnacle of happiness.

In the introduction to her book , Lustbader goes on to say ” The myth of youth as the best time of life burdens the young and makes us all dread getting older, as though there is only diminishment of life’s bounty as the decades pass…. Life gets better as we get older , on all levels except the physical.” When I first read Lustbader’s words , I was skeptical but , upon reflection , I have to agree with her.We are entranced by external appearances and know nothing of the internal traumas that beset our youth.

P.S. Wendy Lustbader’s book is not about youth . The sub-title of ” Life Gets Better” is ” The Unexpected Pleasures of Getting Older” and I highly recommend it . Author Lustbader is a social worker and professor who works with older people and their families and writes and lectures nationally on the subject of aging. The book is wonderfully written and is a must read for people in all stages of life , whether they young , middle-aged or elderly.

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